


Angry Birds

by tawg



Series: The Dangers of Dating a High School Principal [11]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Natasha Romanov is not even pretending to be helpful, Principal Coulson, SHIELD agent BFFs, Tony Stark tries to be helpful, bruce is a secret master of dating, emerging bromance, hulkeye friendship, medical leave, relationship troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:19:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gets out of hospital, but not really. He and Bruce have adventures, kind of. Phil and Clint talk, except when they don’t. It’s actually very therapeutic, aside from the part where it isn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angry Birds

Clint was removed from the SHIELD quarantine facility early on Sunday morning. He felt weak and awful. His right arm was in a sling and his hand was responding to instructions intermittently. He had refused to sleep the night before and his eyeballs felt raw. Phil hadn’t seen him since the brief visit when Clint had returned to the real world. Natasha had drunk half of his coffee when she had picked him up. His underpants were slightly too big due to the weight he’d lost during the past week, and the feeling of them slipping down over his butt was distracting.

And, on top of all that, Clint had to go to the tower. 

“Just drop me off at PT,” he grumbled from the passenger seat.

“Without clean clothes?” Natasha asked.

“They have clothes at PT.”

“You hate SHIELD issue civvies.”

“Nearly all my clothes are SHIELD civvies,” Clint replied. 

“We need to pick up Bruce,” Natasha countered. “And I’m not driving you to PT.”

“I’d drive you,” Clint said, glancing over at Natasha.

Natasha pursed her lips. “It’s in the next state.”

“I did drive you, last time.”

“Because you’d broken another handler,” Natasha countered with a small smile, “and you wanted to be a safe distance from Hill when she found out.”

Clint clenched his teeth and then shifted his jaw to work out the ache. “I still drove you.”

“You’re driving me crazy right now,” Natasha replied, a warning edge in her tone. Clint pressed his lips together and stared out of the passenger side window. 

Stark Tower was every bit as huge and grandiose as Clint remembered it. It actually looked slightly shinier than his memory, though his memory wasn’t the most trustworthy source of information of late. He and Natasha had a level split between them. Clint had his side decked out with the bare essentials – civilian clothes, the tropical scented body wash he liked, slightly less than a million dollars worth of light artillery, and a CD that had come free with one of Natasha’s magazines. 

Clint was set in his habits, and he had a whole lifetime of experience telling him not to put down roots. He wasn’t going to ignore that good sense just because Tony Stark of all people liked to keep the world easily divided into the things that he did and did not own.

Natasha, in comparison, excelled in putting down roots. And tearing them up. Natasha was a tumbleweed, and Clint struggled to understand the ease with which she situated herself into one habitat and the clean break that came when she moved on. Her side of their quarters at Stark Tower was filled with trinkets – jackets draped over chairs and framed landscapes on the walls and souvenirs from who-knew-where tastefully decorating surfaces. Sure, most of them were deadly weapons in the right hands (and Natasha’s hands were always the right hands), but Clint struggled to understand the motive behind putting so much effort into a cover when that cover was her own personal life.

(The best thing about Phil had been his ability to roll with the punches of Clint’s lifestyle. It had been awesome to have someone so easily accepting, right up until uncertainty had burrowed under Clint’s skin and left antagonising itches in places he couldn’t scratch.)

Clint sat on his bed as Natasha packed his duffel bag. He’d been forewarned that he’d be in PT for the coming months, but assured that his time out at the medical facility would span less than a fortnight. Clint knew that SHIELD lied about such things with ease, and Natasha packed him extra pairs of socks without any prompting.

“Do your clothes fit alright?” Natasha asked when it came time to pack track pants and worn jeans.

“My panties are a little roomy,” Clint replied.

“You can borrow some of mine,” Natasha offered.

“I’m not sure my junk will fit.”

“Really? You’re usually pretty good at cramming your junk into places it doesn’t belong,” Natasha replied. Clint pulled a pair of balled up socks out of his duffle and hurled them at her, and Natasha laughed easily. “I’ll grab you some out of stores,” she said as she lobbed the socks back, and Clint caught them easily with his left hand.

“SHIELD stores or Stark stores?” 

“We’ll raid the Stark stores,” Natasha replied. “Too much of your wardrobe is SHIELD as it is.”

“Yeah, well, you and Pepper never did get around to taking me shopping.”

“I’ll book in a girls’ day as soon as you get back.”

“Great,” Clint replied, one knee bouncing up and down. “Are we done? Can we go?”

“You’re such a brat when you’re off on medical.”

“I’m a little brother,” Clint replied absently as he cast his gaze around the room. “I’m always a brat.”

“I haven’t had a chance to do you that favour yet,” Natasha said, her voice light and friendly so as not to pique Jarvis’ curiosity. “I’m waiting until things have calmed down a little.” Which meant that Natasha was waiting until Clint’s file had a few less cautions flagging it before plugging ‘Barton’ into the SHIELD search engines.

“It’s fine,” Clint replied. “No rush.” Barney was an old bruise that Clint poked at every now and again, just to make sure it was still there. It wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait. He was probably being paranoid.

“Alright,” Natasha said, zipping the duffel closed. “We just need to grab Bruce and you’ll be set.”

Clint stood up so Natasha could sling the strap of his bag over his good shoulder, and then put his sunglasses on. “Let’s go.”

The flaw in the plan was Bruce. Bruce with his hands bandaged into big white paws. Bruce who moved stiffly because his left flank had been burned through and no one was quite sure whether administering painkillers to a man who required persistently high levels of self control would be a terrible idea.

Bruce who had spent the past five days struggling to pull his pants up, never mind packing for PT.

“Stay here,” Natasha instructed Clint. “I’ll be right back.”

“You don’t have to,” Bruce started, but Natasha was already disappearing back into the stairwell that led up to the living quarters. Bruce gave Clint a helpless look and Clint shrugged his left shoulder in return. Natasha recovered from emotional weaknesses like worrying about other people by being aggressively productive. Whether it was kicking ass or packing underpants, Natasha would do it to the best of her ability until the obstacle was overcome. Bruce looked embarrassed about the whole ordeal, but he drifted over to a long bench where the information packet for the SHIELD physical therapy institute had been laid out, giving Clint his space and looking at pictures of lush green fields and a handsome pool.

Tony, however, was a little more demanding. “You!” he exclaimed as he emerged from the elevator, pointing a finger at Clint. “You are just the little bird I am after.”

Clint twisted his head to watch Tony’s approach, but kept his body angled away. Tony addressed Clint’s closed body language with his usual tact and delicacy – he clapped a hand on Clint’s shoulder and pulled him around, before shoving a small, bright object in Clint’s face. He held it there until Clint finally pulled his free hand out of his jacket pocket and took the object from Tony.

“This,” Tony said grandly, “is a mobile phone. It belongs to you. It is your mobile phone. You put your contacts in it. You put your _emergency contacts_ in it, so the next time you wind up in hospital Principal Hottie can get the heads-up early. The emergency contacts part is very important. Pepper went to great pains to train that habit into me, and now I am passing this life-changing knowledge on to you.”

Clint stared down at the phone in his hand and Tony beamed at Clint proudly. The moment stretched, and stretched. Clint wasn’t willing to hide his annoyance at Tony, however misguided it may be, and Tony lived by the rule that he didn’t have to be courteous to anyone under his own roof. A stalemate of egos. Eventually Clint lifted one of his eyebrows by a fraction of an inch. “I’m being lectured on how to have a healthy relationship by Tony Stark,” he said flatly.

“This is a scary moment for me, too,” Tony replied, a wry grin casting his face in a more familiar light. 

Clint looked down at the sleek object in his hand. “Thanks for thinking of me,” he said flatly. He dropped it on the island bench of Tony’s bar as he walked past it, and didn’t look back as he headed into the kitchen to acquire more coffee.

“He’s in a good mood,” Tony commented sourly, his voice carrying after Clint.

“It’s been a rough week for him,” Bruce reminded Tony. 

Tony picked up the phone and held it out to Bruce. Bruce stared at Tony flatly until his friend made the connection. “Right, hands.” Tony slipped the phone into the breast pocket of Bruce’s shirt, and then patted it affectionately. “See that he learns how to accept a gift, will you?”

“Sure,” Bruce replied. “Because Clint and I are best buddies.”

“Yeesh,” Tony sighed, rolling his eyes. “Does everyone in this tower have an attitude problem?”

“Actually, Sir-”

“Rhetorical question, Jarvis.”

~*~

Clint, Natasha, and Bruce were crammed into the backseat of a Lincoln town car, heading North-East on Bruckner Expressway when Bruce spoke up. “Oh hey,” he said, not even bothering to sound casual, “Tony asked me to deliver this to you.” Bruce gestured to his breast pocket with a white, clumsy hand. Natasha, seated between Bruce and Clint, followed his cue and pulled the phone out.

“Huh,” she said. “Isn’t that surprisingly thoughtful of him?”

Clint didn’t turn away from the window he’d been staring out of since their journey began. It was an estimated three hours and thirty minutes to get to their destination. Clint was betting that their driver could shave an hour off that. “SHIELD personnel are not allowed to own any communications devices, or devices that could be construed as such,” he said without inflection.

Natasha — trained assassin, security escort for damaged Avengers, and classy lady — responded by grabbing Clint’s nipple through his shirt and twisting it until Clint was angled half across her lap, hissing and writhing as he tried to escape from the most deadly of all playground abuses. She tucked the phone into Clint’s sling and then shoved him away. “Isn’t that surprisingly thoughtful of Tony?” she repeated firmly.

“Yeah, yeah. The guy’s fucking awesome,” Clint grumbled as he pressed himself to the side of the car, curled protectively in on himself and as far away from Natasha as he could manage in the backseat.

“I’ll pass that on,” Natasha replied sweetly. Bruce stared at them both for a moment, an air of fond bemusement about him, and then turned his attention to the passing scenery. Clint would be very happy when the whole ordeal was over.

~*~

The SHIELD rehabilitation and recovery facility was a large, striking building surrounded by fields and some forestry. Clint had read up on it the first time he had been threatened with an extended stay. It had been a sprawling farm at one point, and then a largely unproductive farm, and then a boarding school, and then the burnt out shell of a boarding school. There was a rumour that an agent with some personal experience with the school had been an influencing factor in SHIELD buying the site and razing every structure on it to the ground.

The new building was long and low, with large windows that were no aid whatsoever to seeing inside. They were checked in with minimal fuss, though Bruce needed help with the basics like showing his SHIELD ID and signing his body over to the proper authorities. For some reason that latter part caused some problems with the guy, and Clint had to stand around in pain while the patient and the head doctor had a long discussion about Bruce’s body and the many ways in which Bruce was not willing to give up control of it. Clint had heard the quiet insistence when he and Bruce had first met, and it annoyed him that SHIELD still hadn’t taken that particular memo to heart.

Clint’s room was bland and clean, accessed through a small common room that serviced three other rooms. He and Bruce were the only people in the wing, so at least Clint wouldn’t have to worry about people trying to make friends with him. Not that Clint had anything against the general idea of friends. It was just that he was missing what felt like half of the crucial muscle in his back and struggled sometimes with snatches of memory of things that hadn’t happened. He didn’t want to deal with his own friends, let alone some smiling assholes he didn’t know.

“You both have light surgery tomorrow,” they were informed by the medical agent escorting them to their rooms. “You’ll be fasting from sixteen-hundred onwards.”

“So I take it we’re not invited to pizza night?” Bruce asked. He had a sense of humour that was so wrapped up in putting others at ease that most people didn’t notice that it was largely sardonic. The agent gave Bruce a tight smile.

“You’re free to explore, but we recommend you don’t leave the main structure until your injuries have been thoroughly assessed.”

“And how thorough is... thorough?”

Clint suspected that the agent didn’t know of a polite way to say _‘they’re going to stick their hands so far into the hole in your side that you’ll feel like a fucking Muppet’_ , because he merely gave Bruce another tight smile and then turned on his heel and left.

“It’s hard to believe you’re both agents,” Bruce commented when they were alone. “Did you skip the personality amputation step of the recruitment process?”

Clint stepped into his room and kicked the door shut behind him. “Ray of sunshine,” Bruce called from the common room. “No wonder you’re the kids’ favourite.”

Clint fished the mobile phone out of his pocket and tossed it on the dresser, before setting about figuring out how to leave his room without using the door. Clint preferred the older SHIELD buildings because they were usually pieced together with odd extensions, and hollow walls stuffed with insulation, and crawlspaces for maintenance zigzagging across blueprints. The new buildings had a lot less imagination.

Clint liked to think that he had enough creativity to make up for it.

~*~

Clint was perched on the edge of the roof above the jutting arm of the building that held the gym when Bruce came looking for him, the sweep of Bruce’s eyes along high places giving his intention away. Clint maintained his position as Bruce wandered over, the injury to the side of his torso making his steps loping and uneven. “Having fun?” Bruce called out.

“This vacation is great, baby,” Clint replied as Bruce finally stopped just below. “You always take me to the most romantic places.” Bruce snorted. Between their first meeting and the experience that stretched before them, the landscape of their acquaintance had been littered with warzones and natural disasters and rampages of things. 

“I thought we could use the time alone. I just feel like we’re not on the same level anymore,” Bruce returned. Clint threw a small piece of bark from the gutter down at Bruce. “Very mature,” Bruce replied. They hung out in silence for a long moment, watching the landscape around them. Clint had been keeping an eye on some activity further out on the property. Some large metal boxes were being set up in one of the farther paddocks.

“What do you think those are for?” Bruce asked.

“Look like storage containers,” Clint replied. “For storage.”

“Thanks,” Bruce said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d be a lot less certain about storage containers, for one thing.”

Bruce laughed and Clint flicked another piece of bark in Bruce’s direction, missing intentionally. “Hey, have you got your phone figured out?”

“Oh yeah,” Clint replied flatly. “I can’t put it down.”

“You could just say you’re not using it,” Bruce said, and Clint didn’t respond. “It’s not going to be a security risk,” Bruce said at last. Bruce and Tony were sometimes best friends, depending on which part of the manic-scientific-genius wavelength they were on. Bruce would put in a good word for Tony (and vice versa) and then back out of the issue, content in the knowledge that he had done his friendship with Tony justice. “We both know that Tony runs rings around everyone else when it comes to this stuff.”

“He does,” Clint agreed.

Bruce shifted his stance, and Clint widened his own crouch out of sympathetic habit, rolling his left shoulder in an effort to ease the ache in his right. “Do you have a problem with Tony?” Bruce finally asked. 

Clint looked down at Bruce in contemplation. There was no strategic benefit to not following his gut and acting like an asshole, but Bruce had a worn patience to him that made all acts of assholery feel petty and childish. Eventually Clint returned his attention to the storage containers being assembled in the distance. “I’m just not interested in trusting someone who is so bad with people he has to build his own friends,” he said at last.

Bruce chuckled. “You know, I never really thought about it like that before.”

Clint rolled his shoulder once more, and then gave up on his perch. His blood was cooling and his stomach was rumbling, and he was really hoping there would be a painkiller in his near future. He dropped down from the roof and landed in a crouch by Bruce’s side. “Come on,” Clint said as he straightened, giving Bruce a playful smirk. “If we team up, I bet we can infiltrate the kitchen.”

“Alright, but you’re on catsuit-wearing duty,” Bruce replied. Clint grinned suddenly in a silent laugh and led the way.

~*~

“I think we should forget the Hulk,” Clint said at dinner the next day, as he picked another sandwich off the platter they’d been given. “We should just send you into conflict zones to make sad eyes at everyone.”

“I don’t want people to develop an immunity to the sad eyes,” Bruce replied around a mouthful of cheese and cucumber on wholemeal bread. “They’re my one natural defence.”

Diligence to security was apparently a trait that was trained into all SHIELD staff, including those in the kitchens. Getting into the kitchen the previous evening hadn’t been difficult, despite having only one fully operational hand between the two of them. Explaining their presence in such a way that wouldn’t lead to disciplinary action to the three kitchen hands who had burst in on them before Clint had managed to find the industrial sized box of cookies had been a little harder. In the end Bruce had just held up his bandaged hands and looked sad and hungry at them. 

Clint had been impressed with the results. They were now getting food delivered to their common room. It probably had more to do with the kitchen staff wanting to avoid the other agents in for PT getting any ideas about the possibility of helping themselves whenever they were peckish than any real sympathy for two hungry Avengers. Whatever the motivation, Clint approved.

“I was a student for… for a long time,” Bruce eventually explained. “Convincing other people to feed you is a skill that separates the strong from the weak. And then after that there were research seminars with free lunches, and meals with reps from different companies.”

“And then the years you spent on the run,” Clint chipped in.

“Right. Can’t forget about that.”

“I’m just saying,” Clint replied. “You’ve really honed that to an art.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Bruce said, before changing the subject as abruptly as he could. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Fucked for now,” Clint replied around a mouthful of sandwich. His morning had been filled with people poking at his right shoulder and tugging at his arm. Then had followed several hours of really uncomfortable surgery under a local anaesthetic, in which things were pulled together and substances Clint didn’t want to consider too closely were applied to the ruined muscle. He’d been restrained for it, because news about his last surgical procedure had gotten around. The experience had left his upper back feeling tingly and disconnected from the rest of his body. The anaesthetic he was on made him casual and chatty.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bruce replied, because apparently his time as a fugitive had not stripped him of social niceties. 

Clint waved a hand vaguely. “It happens.”

“Think it’ll heal?”

“Probably.”

Bruce looked down at his own, bandaged hands. Treating Bruce for any injury was always a tricky process because SHIELD medical were never quite sure how the Hulk would respond. Bruce had been subject to some milder poking and then a round of post-parasite psychological assessment. “Well that’s promising,” he said at last. The Other Guy had taken the brunt of the damage, and Bruce was apparently healing nicely. He wasn’t able to handle complex equipment like buttons and zippers and shoelaces, and according to Natasha it had only been due to Bruce’s firm refusal to be naked in front of every single SHIELD agent on the planet that had kept bathing from being a team building exercise back in New York. Clint assumed that Bruce had that situation under control. 

“You’ll be fine,” Clint said without bothering to make his tone at all comforting, because it was the truth.

“I’ll be happy when I have my fingers back,” Bruce said at last. “I’m sure it’s worse for you.” 

It wasn’t much of a secret that Clint was defined by his skill set. He had relaxed a little once he had settled into his slot on in the Avengers line-up, though he still found his presence there mildly baffling. But archery had been a passion of his for a long time, and he tended to judge the other elements of his life by how neatly they fit around his job. 

“Oh no,” Clint replied, allowing some sarcasm to seem into his voice. “I love being mostly helpless and shipped off to the middle of nowhere.”

Bruce grinned down at the sandwich he held awkwardly with both hands. “It’s how we met,” he said sweetly.

Clint snorted. “You know, I was promised a week off for taking that mission.” He hurled a piece of crust through the air, sending it sailing into a trashcan. “They just added it to my medical leave.”

“Bastards.”

“I know, right? Anyway,” Clint stood up and shifted his hips, stretching his lower back. “Thanks for dinner.”

Bruce held one hand out, and Clint grabbed his wrist and helped him up to his feet. “Hey, how’d your date last week go anyway?” Bruce asked.

Given the amount of effort the whole team had put into the exercise, Clint had expected to be asked sooner. Regardless, he didn’t have any kind of answer planned. How could he sum up the experience – the night and the day after and then the week that wasn’t? But Bruce was waiting for an answer, and Clint finally managed to find some words that were truthful.

“It had its moments.”

~*~

Clint quietly hated the phone Tony had given him. The suspicious nature that SHIELD had finally trained into him meant that he had to take the time to go through all of the apps and files and programming, looking for little tricks and loopholes. And the egomania that fuelled Tony meant that, of course, the phone was packed with more than it should have been. It was awkward to use with one hand. It was both a gift and not a gift, and Clint honestly didn’t know what to do with that.

And so Clint hadn’t called Phil. 

Tony had programmed a handful of numbers into Clint’s phone, and Phil had been in there multiple times. Phillip Coulson. Principal Hottie. ICE – Coulson. Phil’s various entries made up one-third of the contacts in Clint’s phone. 

And despite the high likelihood of Clint landing on Phil if he picked out a contact at random, Clint still hadn’t called him.

It had been a long time since Clint had done anything that involved feelings beyond ‘that feels nice’. It had been a long time since Clint had been involved with anyone who wasn’t involved with SHIELD. He hadn’t even been on the prowl, so to speak. It had just been a case of something catching his eye at the right moment. And when something caught Clint’s eye, he pursued it. (For all that Clint suffered through the jibes about his codename, there was certainly some accuracy to it.) 

It had honestly been a long time since Clint had found someone interesting. He liked listening when Phil spoke. He liked asking questions and watching as Phil considered them before answering. He liked the things that Phil noticed and the clothes that he wore and how quietly handsome he was and how easily he flirted. He liked that Phil had this odd existence of appearing to be perfectly in control of his school until the exact moment that he chose to let the facade slip a little, allowing Clint to glimpse the concern and exasperation underneath. He adored Phil’s sense of humour.

And the idea of picking the phone up and calling Phil and hearing his voice was absolutely daunting. What would he even say? _Hi, I’ve been thinking about our future together and I hope you like sitting beside hospital beds and me running security checks on you every second week, because those are going to be relevant skills._

Clint had been operating under the assumption for several years that he hadn’t had a serious relationship because he didn’t want one. Going out for drinks with someone every few months and regular encounters in between of fucking, filled with rough hands and faces pressed against necks so there was no risk of awkward eye contact, had clearly been enough. Since meeting Phil, Clint had reassessed the data at his disposal. Clint hadn’t had a serious relationship in a long time because he wasn’t good at them. 

Phil called Clint on his bullshit and accepted Clint’s boundaries. Phil had finagled his way into a top secret, high security quarantine ward and then spent several evenings sitting by Clint’s bed, holding his hand even when Clint had needed to be restrained and Phil had been warned to stay away. Phil, in all honesty, could do a lot better. Someone he wouldn’t worry about. Someone who could send him postcards from their trips overseas. In the interest of fairness, Clint was willing to admit that it was unlikely that Phil could find someone who could match Clint when it came to long distance shooting or shared his skill in hiding in crawlspaces. But they were two talents that paled in comparison with, say, the ability to call when instructed to.

And so on Tuesday, four days after they had last spoken, Clint compromised and sent Phil a text.

**I’m out of town for a while to heal up Clint**

After a moment, he sent another.

**I’ll have this number for a while**

Clint kept the phone in his hand until he felt it vibrate with a response.

**I’m glad you’re up and about. How are you?**

Clint stared at the message for a long moment. Phil probably didn’t want a medical profile. Clint should probably stop overthinking it. **Good. How are you**

Phil responded with a picture message. It was a photo of Phil and Boryn, the wrym wrapped around Phil and nuzzling his face. Phil had clearly taken the photo himself, and he had an odd little expression of annoyance on his face as a result of trying to get the angle right. A follow up message came through a moment later.

** We’re running low on rats, so I’ve introduced Boryn to hamburgers. Positive results so far.**

Clint smiled. **Can you get out of that or are you stuck there until it decides to let you go**

**Sometimes it depends on whether I have the squirt bottle with me. Why, are you jealous?**

Clint tapped the phone against his teeth for a moment as he considered his options. **You two are up to watersports already? kinky**

After a moment he also sent, **Definitely jealous**

It took a little longer for Phil’s next message to come through, though Clint knew enough about Phil’s schedule to know that when their conversations were put on hold it was either for a good reason or due to Phil falling asleep. **You’re definitely my favourite.**

Clint’s response came easily. **I bet you say that to all the boys**

**Only if they’re my favourite. I need to go before Boryn eats my phone. Can I call you?**

Clint considered the question. Considered that he missed Phil without being completely certain of where they stood. Considered that it had taken him days to work up the momentum to text and Phil had offered to call like it would be the simplest thing in the world.

**Thatd be great. I’ll let you know when I’m free**

**Talk to you soon, oxo.**

Clint would never admit it to Tony, but maybe the phone had its uses. Then he considered how quickly Phil had turned his mood around, and he stuffed the phone down to the bottom of his duffle bag.

~*~

Clint sat on the edge of the roof above the gym. It was becoming his preferred perch – it gave an unparalleled view of the fields and the activity taking place in them. New fences were being set up. Large, industrial, electrified fences. Clint sipped his morning coffee and watched with interest until Bruce came looking for him.

“Anything to report?” Bruce asked when he finally emerged. His hands were still bandaged, and it took him a long time to anything related to grooming. He was sporting scruff that was two days away from turning into an impressive beard. He hadn’t asked Clint for any assistance and Clint wasn’t going to offer any until Bruce looked really pathetic.

“Some ass didn’t secure the cable before trying to pull it tight. They’re down one worker.” Not that it would make much of a difference – the field was swarming with people in hi-vis vests and work boots. It looked like SHIELD was determined to have the area fenced off before the end of the day.

Bruce scratched his head with the flat of one bandaged palm. “Any idea what they’re putting in there?”

“Plenty,” Clint replied. “Maybe I’m finally getting that pony I asked for.” Bruce snorted, and Clint slid down off the building, hanging by his good arm for a moment before dropping to the ground. He offered Bruce the rest of his coffee, and Bruce took it, holding the mug awkwardly with both hands.

“What’s on the itinerary for today?” Bruce asked. A folder with a schedule was delivered to their common room every morning, but Bruce was still struggling with fine manipulation like picking things up and dealing with paper. Clint had become the agent in charge of schedules and picking up small objects and dealing with high-priority itches.

“Shots and then PT,” Clint replied. “Then lunch and more shots. Then your tendons are getting poked and I get sassed at by some fucking personal trainer.”

Most of Bruce’s physical therapy involved flexing his fingers, ensuring that the scarring on his hands wouldn’t end up so tight as to restrict his movement. It drove Bruce a little nuts because it was so boring. Clint got to spend long hours with a thick band of elastic, rebuilding the muscles in his right shoulder and leading down his back. He was getting shot up with a serum that sped up the muscle growth, and as a result he had three SHIELD medics breathing down the back of his neck at any given time while some ass in short-shorts lectured him about not pushing himself too hard. 

Clint’s phone vibrated in his pocket, distracting him from the bad mood the day would no doubt give him. Clint still hadn’t given Phil a time to call him.

**I have a student in detention and school doesn’t start for another ninety minutes.**

Clint could imagine Phil looking exasperated. He wondered if Phil was the kind of person to pinch the bridge of his nose when irritation threatened to overwhelm him. He knew that Phil was exactly the kind of person who stared at problems until they quietly excused themselves and slunk off to question their life choices.

**I’ll swap you. I’ll scare the kid and you come and get poked for a few hours**

The response came through quickly **Would you be doing the poking? Do I get a guarantee of several hours duration?**

**You’re very demanding**

A reply didn’t come through in the next thirty seconds, which suggested the Phil was dealing with his student. Clint slipped the phone back into his pocket, and glanced over at Bruce who was very pointedly not looking at Clint.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Bruce replied with a small smile on his face, gazing at the work being done in the distance. Clint poked Bruce in the side, making him twist away and wince as the transplanted skin on his other side stretched uncomfortably. “Ow,” he said reproachfully.

“Breakfast,” Clint replied, and started walking towards the doorway closest to the kitchens. They were going to be testing the strength of his draw that afternoon. He was willing to bet that he’d be the sore one by the end of the day.

~*~

Clint stared up at the ceiling of his room. He had a single bed with a mattress that was springier than he liked and too narrow for his convenience. His right shoulder burned. It ached and agonised and left Clint curling his lip at an unfamiliar ceiling that was just like every other SHIELD ceiling in the world. When he lay on his back the skin screamed at the pressure. When he lay on his stomach the angle of his arm aggravated the muscle no matter how he tried to organise the limb. Laying on his side involved far too many muscles stretching and contracting to hold the pose, to keep his shoulders from curling in and dragging apart the healing wound.

They’d offered him painkillers after his physical therapy. He’d looked at them like they were crazy, like they were lazy, over-medicating assholes even though his eyes had been stinging with sweat and his back had been on fire and his right arm from the elbow down had been tingling with pins and needles. He knew that SHIELD would be listing and monitoring and tracking his medication. He needed them to know that he was keeping his head clear. That as much as he had been compromised, his mind was sharp again, back to normal.

But it meant that Clint was breathing sharply through his nose, was awake in the middle of the night because the small snatches of sleep he slipped into were filled with uncomfortable dreams. Sheets tearing in his teeth and bones creaking in his grip. Muffled screams and the smell of burning flesh. In the small hours of the morning, it was easy to wish that it had been a bullet to his shoulder, despite everything else that would imply.

Clint shifted, rolling his hips, trying to find some ratio of back pressed to mattress that wouldn’t have him chewing the inside of his cheek. He needed a distraction. He needed something to take the edge off and something to calm him down and something that promised of goals other than the yellow centre of a target.

He reached for his phone, his breath hitching at the stretch. He dialled Phil’s number and only allowed himself to consider the option when he was waiting for the call to connect. It was late. Phil would be asleep. Phil shouldn’t be trusted until Clint had his head on straight. Clint couldn’t be trusted and had probably never had his head on straight. Clint wouldn’t be good conversation. He didn’t know what to say. He shouldn’t call at all. He shouldn’t even have the phone. It was never going to—

“Coulson,” Phil mumbled groggily down the line.

“Hey,” Clint replied, caught off guard and breathless.

He could hear the sounds of Phil shifting at the other end of the call, the sound of sheets rumpling. “Hey,” Phil echoed, already sounding more alert.

“I’m sorry,” Clint said. “I shouldn’t have called.”

“I’m awake,” Phil said, his voice quiet and warm. That hadn’t been what Clint meant, but he pressed his phone tightly against his ear, trying to catch all of the small hitches and shifts as Phil sat up in bed. “What’s up?”

Clint ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to shift the sour taste of pain from his mouth. “Couldn’t sleep,” he replied.

“Do you want me to make some soothing ocean noises?” Phil asked.

“Sure. Why else would I be calling?”

And Phil did. Phil sat in bed, in the middle of the night, and did his very best to make soft, shushing ocean noises. They sounded a lot more like wind in the trees than waves on a beach, but his foghorn was quite acceptable. Phil threw in the cry of a startled seagull, and Clint couldn’t help snorting with laughter. Couldn’t help smiling and sucking in a breath of air and doing his best to stomp on the rational instincts that were telling him that it was all a bad idea. He was already too attached. He’d been a little bit crazy for Phil since he’d seen him tear the head off a taxidermied dingo and then quip that dogs always lost their heads if they were kept indoors. 

“Thanks,” he managed to say between snuffled laughs. “That’s really helping.”

“I’ll save the whale song for when you’re really stressed out.”

“God you’re good to me,” Clint blurted out, and then immediately cringed.

Phil huffed a laugh, two-hundred miles away and sitting up in a bed that Clint had bled on. “It’s not a hardship,” he replied.

“What time is it?” Clint asked. “I didn’t even check before I called you.”

“It’s a perfectly reasonable hour,” Phil lied in response. “How have you been?”

“Good,” Clint replied, because if Phil was allowed to lie then so was he. “There’s a pool here and a hiking trail and everything. Of course, I’m not allowed to use any of it because I’m in the red zone. But I get to look at them through the windows all I want.”

“Sounds like a really great experience,” Phil replied. “When I want to look at hiking trails that I can’t use, I have to use the internet.”

“I know,” Clint replied. “I feel really privileged, having hypothetical access to all of this stuff.” Phil laughed softly, and the sound was warped by a yawn. “I’m sorry,” Clint said again. “I should let you get back to sleep.”

“Are you feeling better?” Phil asked, and Clint froze for a moment. 

“Yeah,” he said at last. “A little.” Phil made another ocean noise at him, and Clint laughed once, his chest aching a little as he did. “Yeah, I’m good,” he repeated. “I’ll probably fall asleep soon anyway.” 

“Alright then,” Phil replied, sounding warm and happy and sleepy. If Clint were in New York, he’d already be on his way to Phil’s apartment. “I’ll talk to you again soon.”

“Yeah, sure,” Clint answered. “Goodnight. Or, I guess it should be good morning.”

“Sweet dreams,” Phil said by way of compromise.

“Yeah, you too.” It took Clint a few moments to figure out how to disconnect the call on his new phone, and then he dropped it onto the carpet beside his bed and stared up at the ceiling for a long moment before closing his eyes and replaying the conversation over in his mind. He wasn’t aware of falling asleep, but he woke up just before dawn.

~*~ Thurs

“I think I’m boned,” Clint said to Natasha once the sun was up.

“No, if you’d been boned you’d be in a much better mood.”

Clint made a face at her that she couldn’t see, and swung his feet back and forth over the edge of the roof. “This is not normal,” he insisted.

“It sounds very normal,” Nat returned. “It sounds like you’re in an actual, real, adult relationship.”

“Because you’re the expert.”

“You’re the one calling me for advice,” Natasha shot back.

“Well, it all feels kinda gross,” Clint replied. Natasha made a rude noise at him.

“How’s the arm?” she asked.

“Arm is okay. Shoulder is pretty useless.”

“Can you shoot?”

“No.” He could, but nowhere near a standard that he saw as acceptable.

“Well, you’re going to be there for a while. You may as well take advantage of the one person who actually seems to like talking to you.”

“Thanks,” Clint replied sarcastically. “You really know how to make a guy feel better.”

“You called me before breakfast, what do you expect?” Natasha returned. “So, you like the phone?”

“Hate it,” Clint replied instantly. “It’s pain in the ass. It’s hard to use. Not that I ever use it. It’s a piece of junk.”

“I’ll tell Tony you love it.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I’m hanging up on you now,” Natasha said sweetly. Clint snorted at her and she disconnected the call. He sat of the roof until Bruce came looking for him, watching the activity out in the fields. The paddock boundary was being reinforced with bars of spikes being laid in the dirt a few feet beyond the fence. Clint had a full day in the gym, sweating and hating his life while Trainer Brad in the short-shorts tried to sound encouraging and sympathetic.

He tired to imagine being anywhere but at the pristine SHIELD facility. Then he tried to imagine being anywhere but at the facility or with Phil. It took longer than he was comfortable with for other locations to filter in. Clint sighed and shifted as he saw Bruce emerge from the building. It was going to be a long day.

~*~

Clint lay on his stomach on the floor of the common room. They’d given him painkillers. He had been pumped full of painkillers. Fighting off the first injection had probably been a mistake. He’d been escorted to his bed like a child. He had intended on walking to the common room couch and flopping down to watch some television until his head cleared, but his legs weren’t attached to his body and he’d only managed to drag himself so far before he decided that the couch was going to be more trouble than it was worth. He’d been able to hear the television fine from the floor anyway. It took two hours of listening to informercials before Clint realised that he hadn’t turned the television on.

He really hated painkillers.

A pair of fuzzy feet entered his field of vision. “I take it you had a good day,” Bruce commented. Clint grunted into the carpet. “Come on,” Bruce said, wrapping a bandaged hand around Clint’s bicep and tugging. “Up-up.”

Clint whined. It took a team effort to get him onto his hands and knees, and then up onto his knees. Vertigo took over then, and Clint dropped back down onto his hands, retching.

“Wow, they gave you all of the drugs, didn’t they?”

“So many drugs,” Clint agreed, his speech slurred. Bruce grabbed the back of Clint’s shirt and guided him over to the couch. Later, Clint would be embarrassed about being led around like a dog. At the time he was grateful for Bruce’s presence because it suggested that if he threw up, someone would be around to make sure he didn’t drown in it.

Fucking heavy-handed, scaredy-cat SHIELD medics.

Clint didn’t have the coordination to clamber up onto the couch, and Bruce didn’t have the motivation to haul him up there. Clint slumped against it, his face pressed against the scratchy material, and Bruce sat down beside him.

“You doing okay?”

“Uhn,” Clint replied. 

“Need me to get you anything?”

“Eh.”

“I could get your phone?”

“Nn.” Clint scrunched up his face, hating how obvious it was that Phil was some kind of emotional bandaid. Compromised again, damnit. It had been going so well until the horses and the park, and that had all been because Clint had been wandering around with his head in the clouds. His face slid across the material until his head was resting on Bruce’s shoulder, and he whined. Bruce patted his knee in sympathy.

“How long have you been together now?”

“Mmph.” Clint poked his tongue out of his mouth as far as it would go, trying to wake it up. “When was the museum thing?” he asked, over-articulating each word and sounding like a fool.

“About two months ago,” Bruce replied.

“Two months,” Clint answered. “Kinda.”

“And it’s going well?”

“Yup,” Clint replied. “Nup. Dunno.”

“Good to know you have a definite stance on the issue.”

“I don’t have a definite anything,” Clint said, his words slurring a little, getting caught up in the soft cotton of Bruce’s shirt. “I don’t even know what’s real and what isn’t. Last week...”

“Last week was a series of dreams,” Bruce said firmly. “Nothing more.”

“Can you remember yours?” Clint asked.

Bruce was silent for a moment, but Clint could still hear his mind ticking as he examined the question. “No,” he finally replied. “The other guy got the dreams. I get shoved deep inside when he comes out. I miss most things.”

“Then how do you know?” Clint pressed. “How do you know that it wasn’t real? Or wasn’t a warning or something.”

“Did you dream about him?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah.” It was the first time Clint had admitted as much, and the word hung there in the dim room, taking up so much space.

Bruce considered Clint’s words. “Dreams are said to be an insight into the psyche,” he said at last. “One of the reasons why sleep is so important is that it gives your brain a chance to process all of the new information entered into it during the day. Prophetic visions, however, have far less scientific backing.”

“Says the guy who turns giant and green when he’s angry.”

Bruce snorted. “I think it’s very unlikely that your nightmares are a warning, and far more likely that it was merely a case of pre-existing concerns being exaggerated as a result of guided psychotropic substances.”

Clint groaned in confusion, and Bruce took pity on him. “The evil plant took advantage of your anxieties,” he surmised. Clint slumped away from Bruce let his head loll back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He could feel Bruce studying him. “Were you ever concerned about him before the plant?”

Clint tried to think, but the drugs in his system had made his brain thick and slow. “No,” he said at last, relatively confident that it was the truth.

“But you worried that getting attached was a risk,” Bruce guessed.

“Course,” Clint replied. Getting attached was always a risk. Handlers, teammates. People outside of SHIELD were so much of a risk that it had been years and years since Clint had bothered. Clint wasn’t good at being responsible for people. Clint wasn’t even that great at being responsible for himself. 

“I don’t think your relationship is a problem,” Bruce said at last. Clint rolled his head to the side and looked at him blearily. “I think fear is your problem.”

Clint blinked at him. “You do, huh?”

Bruce gave Clint a cringing smile, looking a little guilty and embarrassed, and it was very much structured to keep Clint from getting annoyed with him. Clint appreciated the effort. “I am an expert on running away from feelings,” Bruce pointed out.

“And the puppy dog eyes,” Clint added.

“And the eyes, yes.” Bruce scratched at his beard with awkward fingers. 

“So what do I do then?” Clint asked. “How do I get it out of my head?”

“Catharsis,” Bruce replied. “You’re pulling apart something that you think represents your fear, but you could find some other symbol.” Clint blinked at Bruce blearily. “Get angry and something else,” Bruce explained.

“Huh,” Clint replied. “Maybe.” Bruce was the expert on anger, and apparently also the expert on being in a relationship that wasn’t all kinds of fucked up. If he thought it was a good idea, it probably was worth looking into.

“Definitely,” Bruce said firmly. “No one’s as good at finding a target as you are.” Clint blinked up at the ceiling for a long moment, and Bruce sat quietly beside him, giving him some space. “Let’s get you to bed,” Bruce said at last. “Staying slumped against a couch all night is not part of your recovery plan.”

Clint groaned and complained, but he did his best to help as Bruce hauled him to his feet. Bruce slung one of Clint’s arms behind his neck, and wrapped an arm around Clint’s back. Neither of them were at their best – Clint was very much at his worst – but they managed to stumble slowly towards the bland, sterile room he had claimed as his own.

“Thanks,” he said, before sagging down onto the bed. Another wave of vertigo hit, and he gripped Bruce’s arm of a moment to anchor himself as sweat prickled across the back of his neck. “I don’t know why you’re looking out for me, but thanks.”

“I owe you one,” Bruce replied. “You were the first recruiter SHIELD sent out to me who wasn’t an asshole.”

“I was never a recruiter,” Clint replied. “The agent in charge was pulled out and I was marked down as expendable. I didn’t want to get myself smashed.”

Bruce stared down at him. “Well,” he said at last. “You still weren’t an asshole.”

Clint wasn’t sure how to respond, so he went with his instincts and flopped over with his legs still hanging off the edge of the narrow bed, burying his face in his pillow. He wasn’t sure if Bruce was right or not. Clint had complete faith in his instincts when it came to fieldwork, but he’d been shown over and over again that his judgment on personal issues was somewhat lacking. Maybe he was getting tied up over Phil for the wrong reasons. Maybe he was finally learning from past experience.

And anyway, it wasn’t like symbols of emotional upheaval that could be disassembled as a form of catharsis just turned up when you needed them.

~*~

Clint was still groggy and nauseous from the painkillers the next morning. He and Bruce stood side by side as armoured trucks with armoured guards carrying guns that were loaded with armour-piercing rounds rumbled along the dirt track up to the high-security storage containers in the far field.

“Any last bets on what they’re bringing us?” Bruce asked.

Clint could hear the kicking and screaming, even over the long distance. “I think they brought us a souvenir,” he said dully.

The roller door of the first armoured truck was unlatched, and as soon as it was opened an alien horse, covered with the sharp, ugly barbs of creepy alien psychic god fungus burst out into the sunlight. It screamed, a high and terrifying sound. Clint had no idea if the noise came from the animal or the plant. 

“Those poor animals,” Bruce said softly.

“Yeah.” Clint stared at the skittish creatures for a long moment and then rolled his shoulder. “Come on.”

~*~

“Are you sure your shoulder is up for this?” Bruce asked. Clint held a free weight in his right hand, his arm extended. The healing muscles were still weak. He’d be drawing with his left arm, holding with his right. They’d toyed with the idea of darts, but the medical facility was strangely short on sharp and weighted projectiles. He’d need two shots – one to prime and one to ignite. It’d be shaky, but certainly not impossible.

“Are you sure your hands are up for this?” Clint countered. The bandages covering Bruce’s hands had gotten thinner and more elastic over the course of the week, but he hadn’t felt confident enough with his grip to take a razor to his face. Clint felt a like he was conspiring with the wolfman.

“If we can find all the compounds, then sure,” Bruce returned.

“The stuff will be here,” Clint replied. “They’re here to be studied, and SHIELD isn’t quite dumb enough to drop them off without a backup plan.”

“They’ve left the two of us unsupervised,” Bruce countered.

Clint looked over at him and grinned. “Yeah, well, let’s make them rethink the wisdom of that.”

~*~

They spent Friday plotting, wandering around like fidgety school boys. The psych department, who were keeping their eye on Bruce in particular, rightfully put it down to being discomfort with the animals being housed at the facility. Bruce pressed the researchers for assurance that they were safely contained and got all of the confirmation that he and Clint needed.

They spent Saturday observing. Clint hauled Bruce up onto the roof and they sat side-by-side, doing their exercises in silence and watching the shapes in the distance. Alien horses, opposed to horse-aliens, were beautiful creatures. Large and glossy, they didn’t have fur so much as textured skin. Thor had regaled them once with tales of the fine beasts that he had ridden, and had remained completely oblivious as to why Clint had spent the whole evening snickering and smirking. The animals themselves were sweet-natured and curious. Thor had said that their disposition was why they made such good steeds, they were not violent but neither were they cowardly.

Bruce had then elaborated that the same attributes had led to them being infected in such large numbers. One would be struck down and others would press close to investigate. They were prefect candidates for such a parasite. Thankfully, humans were far more paranoid.

“This thing is fucked up,” Clint observed. The horses made jerky movements, constantly spooked and aggressive. They would lunge and snap at one another, but didn’t show the same aggression Clint had seen in the park. He assumed that they could sense when another being was infected.

“Sakrdsvenge,” Bruce told him. “That’s what it’s called.”

“I don’t care,” Clint replied. 

Waiting was always the worst part, waiting with tension thrumming through his body. It was okay once the mission started, but the build-up was a killer. It occurred to Clint that he had been waiting for this moment for a long time, since he had woken up all dazed and confused. Maybe part of it was still inside him. Maybe he’d known on some level that there was still more of it out there. He was going to get it out of his head, and then things could go back to normal.

He and Bruce sat in the weak sunshine of early spring until they were called down by an irritable medical officer. They went to bed early, and they rose before dawn.

~*~

Clint sent Phil a text early the following afternoon. **I have good news and bad news**

**What’s the bad news?**

**The physical therapy rehabilitation centre I was at may have been shut down due to a small controlled fire. Investigations are ongoing**

**Strangely enough, I know that feeling. What’s the good news?**

**I’ll be back in New York this evening for disciplinary reasons** Clint replied, and then sent too more messages to properly explain the situation.

**Strictly speaking I will not be allowed out of any SHIELD facilities**

**Possibly ever**

There was a pause as, presumably, Phil digested that information. Within minutes, Clint’s phone vibrated with a return text. **I’ll save some dinner for you.**

Clint grinned. **See you soon**


End file.
